Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion, Disability, Language, or Social Status

The Constitution states that "everyone is equal before law and court. No one may be subjected to any discrimination for reasons of origin, social position, occupation, property status, sex, race, nationality, language, attitude to religion, convictions, place of residence, or any other circumstances." However, the Government does not enforce this provision effectively on a consistent basis. The Government has favored ethnic Kazakhs in government employment and, according to many citizens, in the process of privatizing state enterprises.

Women

According to human rights groups, there is considerable domestic violence against women. A local NGO, the Feminist League, estimates that hundreds of thousands of women are the victims of spousal abuse. The Interior Ministry reported that family members or domestic partners were responsible for about one-third of the nearly 8,500 crimes against women registered in the first half of the year. During the same period, 81 women were murdered by family members. Police often are reluctant to intervene in domestic disputes, considering them to be the family's business, unless they believe that the abuse is life threatening. The maximum sentence for wife beating is 3 years, but few such cases are prosecuted. A new government commission on women and family drew attention to the issue of domestic violence. Law enforcement authorities reported that 288 persons were convicted of rape in the first 8 months of the year, although the total number of reported rapes was unavailable. Under the Criminal Procedure Code, prosecutors can initiate a rape case, absent aggravating circumstances such as gang rape, only upon the application of the victim. There were unconfirmed reports that prosecutors sometimes interpreted this provision to require rape victims to pay for forensic testing, pay the expenses of prosecution, and personally prosecute rape cases themselves. The punishment for rape can range from 3 to 15 years. There is very little coverage of rape in the press, and rapes often go unreported. There is no law specifically against spousal rape, which is proscribed under general rape laws.

There was anecdotal evidence of trafficking in women (see Section 6.f.).

There is no legal discrimination against women, but traditional cultural practices limit their role in everyday society and in owning and managing businesses or real property. The President and other members of the Government speak in favor of women's rights, and official state policy (adopted in 1997) states that constitutional prohibitions on sex discrimination must be supported by effective government measures. Women are underrepresented severely in higher positions in state enterprises and overrepresented in low-paying and some menial jobs. Women have unrestricted access to higher education. Approximately 30 women's rights organizations are registered, including the Feminist League, Women of the East, the Almaty Women's Information Center, and the Businesswomen's Association.

Children

The Government is committed in principle to children's rights, but as in many other areas, budget stringencies and other priorities severely limit its effectiveness in dealing with children's issues. Education is mandatory through the llth grade, although students may begin technical training after the 9th grade. There is no societal pattern of abuse against children. Rural children normally work during harvests (see Section 6.d.).

People with Disabilities

Citizens with disabilities are entitled by law to assistance from the State. There is no legal discrimination against the disabled, but in practice, employers do not give them equal consideration. There are laws mandating the provision of accessibility to public buildings and commercial establishments for the disabled, but the Government does not enforce these laws. Disabled persons are a low priority for the Government. Mentally ill and mentally retarded citizens can be committed to institutions run by the State. These institutions are poorly run and inadequately funded. The NGO, Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights, confirmed its previous observation that the Government provides almost no care for the mentally ill and mentally retarded due to a lack of funds.

National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

According to results of the 1999 census, the population of about 16 million consists of approximately 50 percent Kazakhs and 33 percent ethnic Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and others) with many other ethnic groups represented. At year's end, details of the census had not been released, but there has been no public criticism of the announced ethnic breakdown of the population.

The Government continued to discriminate in favor of ethnic Kazakhs in government employment, where ethnic Kazakhs predominate, as well as in education, housing, and other areas. However, the Government has continued to back away from its "Kazakhification" campaign of the first year of independence (1991-1992). President Nazarbayev has emphasized publicly that all nationalities are welcome, but many non-Kazakhs are anxious about what they perceive as expanding preferences for ethnic Kazakhs. Many ethnic Kazakhs believe that such preferences are needed to reverse 200 years of discrimination.

Most of the population speaks Russian; only about one-half of ethnic Kazakhs speak Kazakh fluently. According to the Constitution, the Kazakh language is the state language. The Constitution states that the Russian language is used officially on a basis equal with that of the Kazakh language in organizations and bodies of local self-administration. Some ethnic Russians believe that Russian should be designated as a second state language. The Government is encouraging more education of children in the Kazakh language, but it has done little to provide Kazakh-language education for adults. A 1997 language law intended to strengthen the use of Kazakh without infringing on the rights of citizens to use other languages has not been funded sufficiently to make Kazakh-language education universal. In 1997 the Parliament committed itself to compile a list of positions requiring Kazakh-language fluency but never did so; the Parliament is not working on such a list.

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Section 6 Worker Rights